Clio Awards, Tails Voice Actress, VO Career Planner, Holograms

Introduction

Hi there and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voice over. I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. In today’s show, you’ll hear about winners from the 2021 Clio Entertainment Awards, Voice actress Colleen O’Shaughnessy is back as the voice of Tails in Sonic 2, a hot new Voiceover Career Planner out of the UK, how hologram technology could soon be replacing video calls, what food and drink voice actors are avoiding before going into a recording session and SOVAS nominee, Nacho Sacchi joins us all the way from Argentina in the Vox Talk Community Spotlight.

News 1: 2021 Clio Entertainment Award Winners

It’s definitely awards season!

Deadline reports HBO won Television/Streaming Network of the Year, Warner Bros Pictures won Studio of the Year and Microsoft Studios/Xbox won Game Publisher of the Year on Tuesday at the Clio Entertainment awards.

The ceremony, in its 50th year, celebrated the best of the entertainment marketing industry and took place Wednesday at the Sunset Room in Hollywood, where the group’s highest honor, the Grand Clio Entertainment Awards, were handed out in the mediums of Television/Streaming, Theatrical, Home Entertainment and Games.

In addition, voice-over artist Tom Kane was awarded the 2021 Honorary Clio Award for his contributions to the industry.

Clio Entertainment executive director Ashley Falls said, “For 50 years, our program has recognized the essential creative work that this community has contributed to the entertainment industry and its role in helping content to find its audience. This year’s winners and all those that have come before them represent some of the most dedicated, hardworking, and awe-inspiring creators in the business.”

To see all of the award winners, you can visit the links in our show notes to the Deadline article but also to the Clio Award website to see all the winners, even those that are in silver and bronze categories.
News 2: Voice of Tails to Voice Tails in Sonic Sequel

Are you looking forward to the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie?

Polygon reports, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, longtime voice of Sonic the Hedgehog’s sidekick Tails, will voice the character in the upcoming Sonic theatrical sequel. She joins Ben Schwartz, who voices the hedgehog, and Idris Elba, previously announced to voice Knuckles the Echidna. Tails was teased at the very end of the first movie — and also in the first teaser for the sequel, revealed last February.

While it may seem unsurprising that O’Shaughnessey voices Tails in the movie after doing so since 2014 (and in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie’s post-credits stinger), many voice actors do not reprise their roles when the video game or cartoon hits the big screen. For instance, Chris Pratt was recently revealed to be the voice of Mario in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, while Charles Martinet, the man who voiced Mario since the 1990s, will simply have only a small role. It speaks to a larger trend of casting recognizable celebrities in animation, instead of voice actors.

The first Sonic the Hedgehog movie came out on February 14th, 2020 — after being delayed due to the massive outcry about Sonic’s design from the first trailer. Despite that first visceral reaction to the initial trailer, the movie did well at the box office and received mostly positive reviews.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will speed into theaters on April 8, 2022.

News 3: The Voiceover Career Planner

Are you ready for 2022? Have some goals in mind and a routine you’re going to follow?

VO Social’s Nicola Redman and Leah Marks in the UK have created a substantial, 52-week career planner specifically for voice over artists to help you manage your business day-to-day. I had a chance to speak with Nic and Leah over Zoom to learn more about their voiceover planner and is it ever great! The planner is a lovely green color with gold lettering on its cover. It actually looks like something you’d find in a really nice library. Inside, you’ll find an abundance of resources, a way to track your hydration for the day and quotes to inspire you from a wide variety of acting coaches, casting directors, voice instructors and more.

One of the best aspects of the planner is that you can literally start at any time. There are no fixed dates on the pages, which for us, is very good news. In the first week or so of their planner going on sale, Leah and Nic completely sold out! All 100 copies are spoken for (some of which have crossed the Atlantic ocean) and the duo will be releasing a revised version sometime in 2022.

To learn more about the Voiceover Career Planner and see it for yourself, visit the link in our show notes.

News 4: How Hologram Tech May Soon Replace Video Calls

We might be closer to Star Trek technology than we think?

When Swiss watch boss, Christoph Grainger-Herr, was unable to fly to a global trade show in China because of Covid-19 restrictions, he decided to beam in Star Trek-style instead, the BBC reports.

Mr Grainger-Herr, the chief executive of luxury brand IWC, had been due to travel to the Watches and Wonders event in Shanghai back in April.

When that became impossible, instead, he decided to joined the show as a life-size, 3D hologram. Appearing in 4K resolution, he was able to talk to, and see and hear the people who were physically attending the event.

He was beamed in and then after the talk, beamed out.

"We beamed him from his office in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, to the event in Shanghai," says David Nussbaum, the boss of US holograms firm Portl.

"He did his thing, chatted to other executives, and even unveiled a new watch, all in real time. And then we beamed him out again!"

Los-Angeles-based Portl is one of the firms at the forefront of the technology, and Mr Nussbaum says, "we can't make our portals fast enough."

Its portals are eight feet (2.5m) tall, glass-fronted, computerised boxes. Inside the booths a life-size hologram of a person appears. The portals go for about 45 thousand quid.

The portals have built-in speakers, so that the hologram's 'voice' can be heard. They also include cameras and microphones so that the user of the hologram can see and hear the people in front of his, or her, projection.

Where the person is actually physically standing - and that can be on the other side of the world from the portal machine - he or she just needs a camera, a plain backdrop, and another set of speakers and microphones.

Portl's app-controlled software system then connects the person via the internet to wherever the portal or portals are - and you can connect to as many as you would like.

To read the full article from the BBC and learn more about this technology, you can go to the link in our show notes.

News 5: What Do You Avoid Before Recording?

Are there any foods or beverages that you avoid before recording a voice over?

In a recent poll on LinkedIn, voice actors and professional voice users answered the following question:

What is the one food or drink you will not consume before a voiceover recording, singing performance, podcast or public speaking engagement?

The options included Dairy, Caffeine, Carbonated Beverages and “Other” where comments were encouraged to go into further detail.

Not surprisingly, of the 93 respondents, 57% cited Dairy as the number one food or beverage avoidance going into the studio for a recording session followed by Carbonated Beverages at 22%, Caffeine at 15% and Other at 6%.

The biggest offender in the dairy category turned out to be chocolate as the comments revealed.

The poll is still going on until next week, so if you’re looking for something fun to do, you can find that poll, read all the comments and then you can add your own vote. Find the link in the show notes for this episode. The poll closes on Wednesday December 22nd, 2021.

Vox Talk Community Spotlight: Nacho Sacchi

Stephanie Ciccarelli: Welcome to the Vox Talk Community Spotlight! This week, I’m pleased to share the stage with Nacho Sacchi, one of our good friends and wonderful voice talent in South America. Nacho’s recent success with a narration project has landed him not only once but twice as an award nominee by the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences. Bienvenudo, Nacho!

Nacho Sacchi: Thanks, Stephanie. Hi, my name is Nacho Sacchi. I am from Argentina. I’ve been a Latin American voice talent for more than twenty years. After working in radio for, like too long, I decided I needed a career change and I thought that voice banks could help me develop and challenge my voice internationally. I decided to try Voices.com and that changed everything. I started to audition every day for little, medium, large, very large projects. For narrations, commercials, characters, everything. For me this was Disneyland. This was like five years ago and 2700 auditions later, being shortlisted in more than 870 of those auditions and been hired for more than 150 jobs, I consider that success because I get to have the same possibilities as any other voice talent in the world no matter where they live and these help me show my work to the world, leading to two nominations for the Voice Arts Awards in the Best Narration category in Spanish for a job I did in Voices. I will be in New York for the ceremony, so wish me luck. If I have to give someone some advice, it’s that you should not lose your patience. Always audition as that job was perfect for you. Always audition thinking you are going to get it. It took me six months to book my first job, but I never lost faith in my voice. I knew that someday I would be giving someone hope and advice about being part of this great tool for talent. Thank you, Voices.com.

Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thank you, Nacho! We are rooting for you and all of our Voices members who are up for SOVAS this year.
Wrap Up

And that’s the way we saw the world through the lens of voice over this week. Thank you so much for being part of our community and for listening to the show today! The Vox Talk team is taking a couple weeks off for the holidays and we’ll return with your favorite VO news podcast in early January. Until then, we wish you peace, joy, good health and fellowship with those you love. For Voices, I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli, wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2022!